Man has used containers for storing and dispensing liquids for millennia. However, containers still have their problems. For example, full cups of soda or hot coffee sold in fast food restaurants being consumed in moving cars have caused many spilling accidents. Although these cups may be equipped with sealing lids with small mouth openings, spilling mishaps are still very common. Serious burns may result from a very hot coffee spill due to certain unavoidable mishap in a moving car. Therefore, there is a need for an improved low cost disposable cup and container, which ideally does not spill while drinking and, realistically is spill-resistant.
On the market, most low cost drinking cups for take out from a restaurant have attachable cover for customer to prevent spill. These covers are usually flat or have some forms of a dome shape with bent edges that fits snugly to the rim of the cup. A small opening is provided on the cover so that the user can drink from the cup with the cover remains attached. When the cup is shaken or vibrated suddenly due to unexpected breaking in a moving car or any other reason, spilling liquid splashed from the opening is common and often unavoidable. A simple low cost yet effective design to replace the current cup design and prevent the spill is needed. A U.S. Pat. No. 6,612,456 proposed a lid for the cup having a hinged portion of a re-closable opening for drinking. This design works well as long as the opening of the hinged re-closable portion is in the closed position. However, when the user opens the hinged portion for drinking, few if any will re-close the opened portion and thus lost its protective feature for spill prevention and making it no more different from most of the cups on the market.
This inventor has developed a number of spill-resistant containers; U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,098,850; 6,374,541; 6,460,741; and 6,758,375 using a hydrostatic principle in achieving the spill-resistant feature. The present invention simplifies the design and allows a scoop-like-baffle with a self re-closeable opening feature and a fitted mouthpiece to be made as an integral part of the cover and achieving the desired low cost spill-resistant cup.